


Twenty Questions

by chainofclovers



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 04:23:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1885002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a response to one of <a href="http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=winter156"><img/></a><a href="http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=winter156"></a><b>winter156</b>'s prompts in the current comment fic-a-thon: "A little bit of a role reversal where Miranda is the one head over heels in love and Andy is just sort of indifferent. Happy or sad ending, author's choice." I wouldn't say Andy is indifferent, exactly, but Miranda is definitely head over heels.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Twenty Questions

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response to one of [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=winter156)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=winter156)**winter156** 's prompts in the current comment fic-a-thon: "A little bit of a role reversal where Miranda is the one head over heels in love and Andy is just sort of indifferent. Happy or sad ending, author's choice." I wouldn't say Andy is indifferent, exactly, but Miranda is definitely head over heels.

  
“What else do you need?” Miranda asked almost immediately after she finally came up for air. She was kneeling at the foot of Andy’s bed, breathing hard, her face a mess. She stroked Andy’s knee with one hand, just hard enough not to tickle, and unceremoniously wiped her other hand on the duvet. Andy was pretty sure Miranda had placed a pillow or folded blanket beneath her on the floor, but either way, for a person of her age—hell, for a person of any age—Miranda had just spent a really long time on her knees.

Andy was famished, and she wondered briefly if she could ask Miranda for some fries. Or maybe a salad, since fries would involve a trip down the block but there were plenty of vegetables in the fridge. Neither seemed a likely sell, but honestly, the only activity Andy could handle at this point would have to involve taking in some calories or falling asleep. She certainly wouldn’t be able to come anymore, not after the effort Miranda had expelled this afternoon.

“Anything,” Miranda added, insistent.

“Um,” Andy said. “I think I’m good.”

“You’re sure? There’s nothing else you want?” Miranda sounded uncertain, as if she’d forgotten about the three orgasms she’d doled out over forty-five incredibly focused, thoughtfully paced minutes. Or that it was Sunday of the girls’ twice-monthly weekend with their father, which meant they’d been able to have sex three days in a row. Miranda had traveled to and from Brooklyn for each session, too—they never slept over—and even with a car the travel time added up. Considering how strangely generous she had already been, what more could Miranda have on offer?

“I’m positive.” Andy sat up and attempted to feel less naked. Over the last few weeks, Miranda had undressed her plenty of times, but she wasn’t quite used to feeling that exposed in front of her yet, especially after the sex was over and there wasn’t anything left to do. She touched Miranda’s wrist, trying hard to be gentle but not tentative. Miranda loved gentle. She hated tentative. “Thank you so much,” she said, cringing even as the words were coming out. “It was great.”

Miranda didn’t seem to notice Andy’s discomfort. “You’re welcome,” she replied, and her voice sounded as earnest as Andy had ever heard it. She glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand and gasped when she registered the time: 5 p.m. “Oh God. The girls will be home in less than an hour,” she said. “I have to leave right now.”

But Miranda didn’t leave immediately. She took her time combing her hair, straightening her clothes, buttoning up her only slightly sweaty blouse. (Andy had figured Miranda deserved at least a little action in return for her favors.) She spent a few minutes in the bathroom and emerged with a less made-up but _much_ less moist face. Andy watched her carefully, so wrapped up in trying to guess what Miranda would suggest for their next meeting that she was almost startled when Miranda spoke. “This week will be hell,” she said. She stood at the foot of the bed, right where she’d been kneeling before. “But I’d love to talk to you. And take you to lunch, maybe Tuesday. Or tomorrow?”

“Let’s do Tuesday,” Andy said firmly. She needed a day to recover from Miranda, who responded by leaning in, brushing her lips across Andy’s cheek, her hands across Andy’s bare shoulders.

“We’ll confirm a time on Tuesday morning,” she said softly. “Think about restaurants, all right?” Then she gave Andy a proper kiss, firm and wet. It sparked in Andy both the familiar frisson of sex and the still-new wonder of being kissed by someone beautiful and powerful. But, like always, the frisson summoned a dozen questions.

When she reached the doorframe, Miranda turned and smiled at Andy. It was a warm-eyed smile, a close-mouthed smile, a smile that was itself an inquiry. If Andy didn’t know any better, she’d think Miranda looked shy. And maybe a little sad to be going. Anyway, she certainly didn’t know how to answer.

“All right,” Andy whispered to herself once Miranda was gone. “I’ll think about restaurants.”

⬌⬌

  
“Lily, she’s insane,” said Andy on Monday night. The women were sitting at a corner table at their favorite cantina; the place was noisy, but Andy felt safer leaving Miranda’s name out of the conversation. Besides, Lily knew exactly to whom Andy referred.

Lily grinned around the extra-long straw she was using to suck down a gigantic frozen margarita. It had been that kind of Monday. After a moment it became obvious that Lily wasn’t going to say anything, so Andy gave her own margarita some attention.

“Don’t forget, you have to breathe,” Lily teased.

“She is _insane_ ,” Andy repeated. “And I think she has gills. She doesn’t need to stop to breathe, if you know what I’m saying.”

“And you love it?”

“Well . . . I don’t know. I don’t get it. I mean, I don’t see her for over a year, then she pops up out of nowhere and asks to take me out? Via handwritten note?” Andy and Lily had been through the story at least half a dozen times, but Andy was nothing if not a verbal processor. “She _asks_. I mean, I just don’t know what to make of it.”

“Derrick asked me out with a note,” Lily reminded her. Her eyes softened; she’d been with her boyfriend, a painter, for nearly eight months, but the shine of their relationship hadn’t faded a bit. “I think it’s nice. It lets the person literally compose themselves. It’s nerve-wracking to tell somehow how you feel. You know that. You’ve been the pursuer before.”

“Well, yeah. But in your case, it makes total sense that Derrick would have been nervous.” She gestured at Lily. “I mean, look at you. Plus, if he’d flirted with you too much in person everybody would’ve thought he was just trying to con you into gallery space.”

“Andy. Hon. What makes you think Miranda would have no reason to be nervous about asking you out?”

Andy shrugged. “I dunno. She does whatever she wants.”

“But when you’re involved, she asks you first. So really, she’s doing whatever you want. And it sounds like it’s working out pretty well for you.”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, she is just . . . voracious, and she never seems to want anything in return.” Lily raised her eyebrows at this, and Andy felt herself blush. “Seriously. I’ve offered to reciprocate and, like, I sort of have. But she mostly demurs. She’s too busy getting my opinion on everything, anyway. What time I might be free and how soon she can come back and if I’m satisfied and everything. I know Miranda, and she is contrary as hell. There has to be an expiration date on this thing. It’s sweet of her to make the effort, but what does she ultimately care, you know? Like yesterday, when she was leaving my apartment. We made plans to get lunch tomorrow, and she said, ‘Think about restaurants.’ Like me picking the place to eat would be the sweetest favor anybody ever did for her. The Miranda I knew at _Runway_ won’t have the stamina to be considerate for much longer.”

Lily stared. “I think maybe it would be. The sweetest favor, I mean.”

“Huh?”

“Think about it,” Lily said, and slurped up the last of her drink. “And definitely pick a restaurant.”

⬌⬌

Andy thought and thought. She thought while she listened to Lily explain the concept behind the next installation going up at the gallery. She thought on the subway, the jostling and noise a million miles away, Miranda close. When she made it home, she fixed a second drink and thought from the vantage point of one of her two barstools, staring into the speckled pattern of her kitchen counter. She was grateful Miranda was at home, throwing herself back into a week of mothering her daughters. Neither called the other that night (Andy never called Miranda unless it was to return a text or voicemail—she didn’t want to interrupt, and besides, Miranda was great about staying in touch) so she spent the rest of the night alone with her mind.

At that point, it was a little over a month since Miranda’s first card arrived in the mail. Since then, they’d had sex on at least a dozen days, had shared about that many meals too. Miranda had lots of ideas, and she was eager to try them out on Andy. As recently as October, Andy hadn’t anticipated ever being on the receiving end of quite so many varieties of oral sex. Or owning a Mont Blanc pen. Or a life in which the tasting menu was a viable option. (“Why should I care who sees us together at Le Bernardin?” Miranda had said. “Or anywhere, for that matter. Darling, you must try Eric’s food.”) In October, none of that seemed realistic. Certainly not in the context of Miranda. But now, on December 4? Now everything seemed to be in that context. That was what Miranda’s presence did: it demanded absorption. Andy had enjoyed her month with Miranda immensely. On a purely base level, she’d never been pleasured nearly so much nor so well. But she was convinced this was just some whim for Miranda, some experiment that would prove short-lived in the end. Maybe Miranda was having a full-fledged midlife crisis and wanted to find out if she was good at lesbian stuff. And she happened to be so thoughtful and so energetic and determined about it that Andy couldn’t help but get swept into her orbit. It wasn’t fair; Andy didn’t even know how she felt about Miranda, and something was stopping her from giving as good as she was getting.

She’d known since she was sixteen that she was open to dating women, so her concerns weren’t about any sort of sexuality crisis. Plus, Miranda was gorgeous and unattainable and exciting, and, at least for now, totally obsessed with giving Andy orgasms. Why was she complaining? Why was she holding back? Where were the butterflies?

 _Because it’s weird_ , Andy admitted to herself. All that energy directed at her. If she closed her eyes, she could feel Miranda’s fingers shake as they pulled down Andy’s jeans, pushed aside her underwear. She could hear Miranda’s little cries, the moans she made when they kissed, the hums of encouragement vibrating between Andy’s legs. She could see Miranda watching her from bed as she packed up to head back to Brooklyn on countless nights, her eyes always inscrutable but trained on Andy’s every move, her whole being as taut as yesterday’s smile. It was definitely hot, all that attention. Miranda was definitely hot. But there was something uncomfortable about the pursuit.

The pursuit. Oh. Andy heard Lily’s voice in her head: “You’ve been the pursuer before.” Yes, Andy had. In fact, she always had, no exceptions. In college, she’d pursued Nate, and before Nate, Justin. In high school, she’d asked out several boys, and not just to Sadie Hawkins dances but to junior prom and senior prom and late-night trips to Skyline. She’d chased down her job at _Runway_ and, to a lesser degree, her current position at the _New York Mirror_. She talked herself off the waitlist for J-school at Northwestern. When she and Lily started to grow apart last year, she won back their friendship with nearly as much enthusiasm as she’d applied to nabbing boys. In fact, there was hardly anything Andy found more appealing than setting her sights on someone or something and making it happen. Never once had an opportunity or a partner fallen in Andy’s lap, working overtime to make Andy feel special. Well, not until this month of Miranda.

Like raindrops—really overwhelming raindrops—the realizations kept coming. She thought about Miranda with a new tenderness: Miranda who, until this year, probably hadn’t asked anyone out since the 1970s, and even then might not have been expected to. Miranda who couldn’t live a day on this earth without having to fend off fawning, cloying attention from fans and ladder-climbers and potential beaux. Miranda who asked Andy out and asked her a million questions, too. Miranda who—and this realization was no raindrop but a punch in the gut—was in love with her.

Miranda on a pursuit wasn’t unappealing; it was simply embarrassing. New things often were. But why shouldn’t Miranda fall in love and show it? What was wrong with big gestures and incessant questions? Nothing. But Andy’s lack of experience as the pursued party went pretty far in explaining why she felt so foreign and frozen in the wake of what was, apparently, Miranda’s love. Why her limbs felt stuck in clay whenever she thought about trying to reciprocate. Good lord, she’d been so busy trying to be cool about Miranda’s grand little experiment that she’d forgotten to consider it might not be an experiment at all.

Despite sweaty palms, Andy fished her Blackberry out of her purse and typed two messages.

First, to Lily: _Whoa. I think I get it now. Let’s put it this way: I’m definitely treating her to lunch._

Second, to Miranda: _I hope the girls aren’t too hyper post-Dad. Can’t wait to see you tmrw. Let’s meet at that cafe near your building. My treat._

⬌⬌

The cafe was crowded with business people taking a quick lunch, and Miranda was patient about waiting for a table while Andy tracked down sandwiches and coffees. If she got looks of recognition, she ignored them, and Andy could feel Miranda’s eyes on her as she waited in line. Finally, they were seated with coffee and a number placard so a barista could bring them their food.

“So,” Andy announced. “I’m an idiot.”

Miranda’s eyebrows shot up. “What did you do this time?”

“What I didn’t do, rather.” She lowered her voice considerably. “I didn’t get it,” she explained. “What you were doing with me. I’ve never been pursued before. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I owe you an apology.”

Miranda made eye contact with her coffee. “I was trying to show you,” she said, her voice almost impossibly small. “There’s nothing to apologize for. I knew there was a chance—more than a chance—you wouldn’t return my feelings.”

As Andy watched Miranda watch her coffee, she felt that jolt of an old sensation, the experience of gazing into Miranda’s office when she knew Miranda was busy working and wouldn’t look back. The feeling of hopeless attraction, of knowing Miranda was the one person Andy would never bother to pursue. “No,” she said quickly. “No, no, that’s not what I’m apologizing for. I was just being dense, that’s all. I didn’t get it, so I was holding back.”

A barista arrived at the table. “Okay, looks like we’ve got a Cluck-a-Doodle Supreme on rye with a side salad”—Andy sheepishly raised her hand to claim it—“ . . . and the ‘Et Tu, Brute?’ Salad with grilled chicken and dressing on the side. Enjoy it, ladies!”

Miranda’s lip quivered in an effort not to laugh. “Did you actually say those words when you ordered?”

“Ha, no, the menu board is numbered. Thank God.”

⬌⬌

A few nights passed before they could see each other again. But on Friday, instead of heading home after work, Andrea loitered in Manhattan, nibbling at a packed dinner and leafing through a novel and biding her time until Miranda texted to say that the girls were in bed. It was a bit of a thrill to sneak into Miranda’s bedroom, to take her in her arms. “Hey,” Andy whispered.

“I missed you,” said Miranda, who was already tearing at Andy’s clothes. Well-practiced by now, she had Andy naked and lying down in seconds, was kissing and touching with abandon when Andy grabbed her shoulders in a firm grip.

“Wait,” Andy said. She sat up and reached for Miranda’s collar. “C’mere. Let me see you.” She kissed Miranda’s cheek. “Let me take care of you.”

Miranda nodded. She breathed in shuddering gasps as they removed her blouse and skirt together, as Andy peeled stockings away from her legs, stripped her of her underwear, unclasped her bra, kissed as many inches of exposed skin as she could find, encouraged Miranda to stretch out on the bed and nestled close. Andy was nervous, but then she brushed her fingers between Miranda’s legs and felt her hips jerk immediately. Miranda was wet like she’d been waiting a year. And, Andy realized, she probably had been.

“This okay?” she asked as she found Miranda’s entrance with her fingers and stroked with her thumb.

“Yes,” Miranda said, and blushed a thousand shades of red when she came approximately thirty seconds in. “Oh no, oh no,” she gasped between gulps of air. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” said Andy, who slowed her touch but didn’t stop. She had no intention of stopping any earlier than three a.m., even if that meant two hours of sleep and sneaking out before the twins woke up. “Darling. You're lovely. We’ll just go again.”


End file.
